


promises we can't keep

by thunderstorms (fictionalparadises)



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Blood, Dream Smp, Fantasy, M/M, based on techno blowing up l'manburg, can be read platonically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28820532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalparadises/pseuds/thunderstorms
Summary: "Sapnap," he chokes out, "I need you to hold me."
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity & Sapnap, Alexis | Quackity/Sapnap
Comments: 15
Kudos: 160





	promises we can't keep

**Author's Note:**

> hi this is based on recent events of the dream smp and it's not canon but please, if any character deaths or depictions of blood/wounds make you uncomfortable, i'd recommend you not to read this!
> 
> during the battle where techno and dream blew up l'manburg, there's a few moments between sapnap and quackity that i based this fic on, [it starts around 41:40](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/863644378?filter=archives&sort=time)  
> also credits to [this tiktok](https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSTSrhHA/) that heavily inspired this <3

Smoke hangs thick in the air, burning Sapnap’s lungs as he sucks in a shuddering breath. A hand flies up to his head to shield his face, but the smoke only gets thicker, stinging his eyes as they water. Tears drip down his face and leave tracks in the grime on his cheeks.

There’s fire— _everywhere._ Bursts of heat and waves of bright orange that nearly blind him, and he staggers back and forth, trying to navigate through the grey haze.

He focuses on the cool hilt of his sword, tightens his fist around it, feels the metal dig into his palm. Stay calm, check your surroundings, he tries to ground himself, but he’s covered in blood, and his right shoulder is bleeding.

Loud, unfaltering booms make his ears hurt.

He doesn’t know when the TNT started falling, just that the intervals between the explosions started steadily growing shorter and shorter. The blasts follow each other up so fast now that it might as well be an continuous motion.

“TNT is raining from the sky!” Sapnap yells to a figure he can barely distinguish in the clouds of smoke, gesturing for them to run. He’ll need to find cover soon, too, he knows this, but the places where the TNT detonates are still the same, so if he sticks to the same path, he’ll be fine for now. He watches them turn on their heel and disappear. 

The taste of gunpowder is bitter in his mouth. He spits on the ground, trying to blink the ash out of his eyes.

A piercing shout makes his blood freeze in his veins. It’s a sound he’d recognize even if he were deaf. A tremor of fear zips up his spine, all the way to his arms. He wriggles his fingers around the hilt of his sword before tightening them and lifting it from the ground.

He can’t go to safety. Not yet.

“Quackity!” He cries out, vocal chords straining. His throat feels like sandpaper from all the shouting he’s already done during the battle.

“Sapnap!” Someone cries back, and Sapnap spins on his heel, trying to figure from which direction the sound came. _“Sapnap!”_

His eyes snag on a figure amid the fire, clumsily staggering towards him, limp evident in his stride.

He’s running before he can stop himself, leg straining as he jumps over the debris. He’s barely reached him before Quackity collapses, and he manages to stick his arms out just in time to prevent him from eating dirt.

“Hi,” Quackity breathes as he looks up at Sapnap, daring a smile.

Sapnap huffs out a breath and smiles back hesitantly. “Hi. Let’s get you out of here, yeah?” He sheathes his sword before sliding his arms under Quackity’s shoulders, lifting him with a groan.

“I can walk,” Quackity says, though the opposite is painfully clear. His ankle is bent at an unnatural angle that Sapnap winces at, and there’s a huge gap spanning across his left thigh that makes Sapnap nauseous with worry.

“Sure you can, big guy,” he waves it off, pulling Quackity closer to his side as he navigates them through the crater. TNT keeps falling from the sky, debris flying up everywhere, shards of stone piercing his netherite armor. Some pieces have already perforated the material deep enough that they’ve lodged into the flesh of his arm.

Maybe it’s exhaustion, or maybe it’s worry, but he miscalculates. The next explosion is close—too close—and it sends them both flying backwards. Sapnap’s breath is forced out of his lungs with a painful woosh as his back collides with the ground, but he’s already up before he’s managed to suck in the next gulp fresh air. Quackity lies a few feet away, unmoving, his back towards Sapnap.

“No, no—” he breathes, crawling over sharp chunks of stone and pulling his body towards him.

Quackity turns on his back, coughing roughly. “I’m okay,” he croaks out, “I’m okay.”

Sapnap is so relieved that he lets out a wet laugh. He helps him sit up, supporting his head with a hand.

Quackity looks far from okay, though, and he knows it. The majority of his armor is gone, the shirt underneath ripped. There’s blood everywhere, and it’s unsettling that Sapnap can’t tell if they’re wounds or just stains. Quackity has a cut on his eyebrow all the way to his eye and there’s blood steadily trickling down his face.

Sapnap opens his mouth to ask if he thinks he can go a little further, but Quackity buries his fingers in the collar of Sapnap’s shirt, and he might be imagining it but he swears that Quackity’s eyes are glassy. “Sapnap,” he chokes out, “I need you to hold me.”

Something in Sapnap’s chest strains at the words. “I will,” he says. Before he can object, Sapnap slides his arms under his knees and shoulders and lifts him in one smooth movement. “After I get you out of here.”

Quackity’s fingers wrap around the back of Sapnap’s neck and dig into the skin there as Sapnap ploughs through the rubble, trying to keep up the pace. More explosions pierce his ear drums, fire licks at his heels as he runs straight through a line of flame.

There’s a wet cough from Quackity and it’s with paralyzing understanding that Sapnap grasps the severity of the situation: he’s running out of time.

Arrows zing past him through the air. One grazes his ear, and a breath later he can feel warmth trickling down his collar. In the distance, among the bursts of TNT and clanking of metal, he can make out the rumble of Techno’s voice. Tommy yells back at him, his tone desperate.

It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. L’Manburg is gone—there won’t even be enough left to rebuild it. This whole battle, this whole war, they were destined to lose it from day one. The TNT won’t stop raining down, the fires won’t stop burning, the rubble won't stop falling. As much as he wants to blame Technoblade for this, he knows that it’s not just his fault. The thought that Dream had a hand in this comes with a twinge of resentment and bitter disappointment.

But even Tommy, and Tubbo, and all of them, played a roll in the destruction of L’Manburg.

And now they’re paying the price. For some of them, the toll is heftier than for others.

Sapnap dares a glance at Quackity. It costs him, and he barely manages to shoot behind the ruins of a building before there’s a volley of arrows being fired at them. He presses his back against the wall, cold stone digging into his back.

They’re not even going to make it out the crater.

He squeezes his eyes shut, hands going limp. He’s not going to be able to get Quackity to the infirmary in time.

“This is it for us, Quackity,” Sapnap says hoarsely.

A gentle hand nudges his cheek. “Sapnap, am I going to die?” Quackity asks, voice somehow calm, steady.

Sapnap bites on the inside of his cheeks, brows drawing together in an attempt to stop himself from crying. The hand draws back from his face, but Sapnap’s hand shoots up to press the palm flat against his cheek again. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“It’s okay,” Quackity replies gently. “At least we can see the sunset from here.”

His eyes snap open, and he follows Quackity’s gaze towards the horizon. On their right, the smoke stops abruptly, making way for the sky. For a moment, he feels hopeful—if the smoke stops here, there has to be a way out. But he can see the ocean, and knows that where the ground stops, unforgiving cliffs await at the bottom, blackening waves crashing against the jutting rocks with relentless force.

“You wanna get a little closer?” Sapnap asks, swallowing hard. He sways to his feet without waiting for an answer, muscles straining from the hours spent fighting today, as he shuffles them a little closer to the edge, though he sits away far enough that it gives him an notion of safety.

The sky is made up of soft oranges and pink, rusty hues bleeding into the blue. The clouds are bright with reflected light as the sun dips towards the horizon.

“We sat like this this morning, remember?” Quackity says. His words are soft, a little slurred, like it’s taking him great effort to speak. “Watching the sunrise.”

They did. In silence, they had watched the sun appear with the promise of a violent, blood-drenched night. Had it only been this morning? It might as well have been a lifetime ago.

Sapnap had thought he knew what was coming with this battle. Looking back on every situation he’d prepared for, it falls into nothing compared to the battlefield now.

“After tonight,” Quackity had said, nudging Sapnap’s shoulder with a grin, “I’ll make us _Cocada._ To celebrate.” 

Sapnap had just rolled his eyes. “You can’t cook for shit.”

A sob racks its way through Sapnap’s chest. “We were supposed to make it,” he bites out. “All of us.”

“It’s okay,” Quackity says, gentle. But when Sapnap meets his gaze, his eyes give away the fear and regret and sorrow. “Hold me,” he breathes. “I’m scared.”

He shifts so that he can sit down on the ground, carefully lowering Quackity until he’s sitting half over him.

Then Quackity smiles up at Sapnap, tenderly adjusting the black bandana around his head and tucking a stray strand of hair underneath the fabric. “Promise me you’ll stay until the end?”

A sob fights his way up Sapnap’s throat, but he forces it down. He sticks out his pinky and hooks it around Quackity’s finger. “I promise.”

Tears pool in his eyes, and he hopes they will blur the memories like they blur his vision.

“It’s okay,” Quackity says again, adjusting so he can sit a little closer. He winces, hand shooting to his side, and bats Sapnap’s worried arm away. “We’re gonna be fine.” But there’s tears dripping down Quackity’s face as well, mud tracks on his cheeks.

“Please,” Sapnap breathes. He can’t feel his fingers, limbs paralyzed. This can’t be happening.

What on earth is he going to say to Karl?

Quackity leans in and wraps his arms around Sapnap, and it’s a miracle how tight he grabs him.

The explosions are getting closer now, loud booms thundering through the air and reverberating through the ground. Shards of stone and wood shake as more gunpowder explodes.

Sapnap hugs back just as tight, pulling Quackity’s head against his chest and pressing a kiss to his forehead.

Silent sobs rake through his chest as he holds Quackity, the force of them shaking his body.

“You’re gonna be fine,” Quackity whispers, his breathing raspy and wet.

He is not. He might never be again.

His hands are warm with blood, and he knows it’s not his. It seeps into his armor and soaks on his shirt underneath.

He can feel the exact moment that Quackity’s grip loosens. He lets out a cry that comes from the depths of his heart, and it pierces the air. Something in his chest fractures permanently. 

But Sapnap doesn’t break his promise. He holds Quackity in his arms, all the way until the end. 

**Author's Note:**

> leave a comment or find me on tumblr/twitter @sundaycore <33


End file.
